As black and as smart as two Top Hats
The Visual Stories Project,
Nottinghamshire
Summer 2017
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| a watchful cheetah |
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| a bird not be trifled with |
In July and August I have
been one of the artists involved in the Visual Stories Project* for
Nottinghamshire’s Inspire organisation
Here, storytellers and
visual artists (mostly mask makers) have been working with children from West Bridgford
and Mattersey Primary Schools and other children in libraries during the school
holidays to blend storytelling with mask-making and then shaping new stories
either as individuals or as whole companies.
The results of school
workshops are on display in West Bridgford and Retford Libraries just now. An
online resource arising from the project should develop by the autumn.
In my sessions,
predictably, our stories wandered in many directions. In Mattersey we heard
stories about a bold Pirate Frog sailing his plastic boat across the wide seas
of grass and of a lonely hedgehog.
The artist team included
Anna Roebuck, maker
Stephen John Mask-maker
Nicky Rafferty, storyteller
Jess Kemp, maker
The Frog Pirate
There was a frog who
wanted to be a pirate and go looking for treasure. He made a boat in a plastic
box, with dry grass for a soft bed and a stick mast with a big leaf for a sail.
He sailed across the seas of grass where the grass sharks swam and mud-whales
appeared until he reached the pond. In the pond, he could see an island and he
thought there must be treasure buried on that island! When he sailed his boat onto
the pond, the water bubbled in through the holes in its bottom. The boat sank.
But the frog could swim so he was safe. He found some treasure but he couldn’t
take it anywhere so he stayed there on the island in the pond counting his
gold.
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| a tiger mask and tiger story |
In library workshops,
drawing on this year’s Summer Reading Challenge theme of Animal Agents, we
wandered again. We have heard unexpected stories: of a seagull and a butterfly,
of the mouse who tickled the tiger’s nose (not always a good plan), of a beautiful
bird from Hogwarts Academy (a firebird, not the same as a Phoenix)
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| Firebird story in development: we worked with pop-up sculptures |
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| ferocious? |
Animal masks grew from
card with Stephen Jon Mask-maker or from recycled plastic bags where the deft
use of iron by Anna Roebuck melted carrier bag collage into tough plastic forms
I’ll post pictures below
with some of our poems and stories….
Mattersey PS
Find your way into a world of animals and
stories:
Visiting
Behind the tree where
the owl sleeps,
Across the sky where the
arrows shoot,
Beside the tree where
the deer leaps,
Between the trees where
the fox waits,
Over a bridge where a
troll sleeps,
If you stand there
You will find baby
hedgehogs
Foxes chase rabbits,
chase deer
Through this bright
sunny forest
And if you come here you
will find butterflies dancing together in the sky.
Two crows
There were crows,
Two crows,
As black as darkness,
As black as night-time,
As black as black as
black,
As black and as smart as
two Top-hats.
Two crows
As naughty as owls,
As naughty as little
sisters,
Even naughtier than
pigeons
That pinch people’s
bottoms.
Two crows, out looking
for trouble…
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| building stories with models and scavenged objects |
THE LONELY HEDGEHOG
Once there was a
hedgehog who had no friends. None of the other animals would talk to him because
he was so prickly and they thought he would prickle them.
One day he curled up in
his hedgehog house under the shed and dreamed of rainbows. He dreamed of
sliding down rainbows. He dreamed of meeting the rabbits that live in the sky
and making friends with them.
Then he woke up and he
woke up feeling sad because he knew he would still be lonely. But when he woke
up he saw that all his prickles were rainbow coloured and beside him was a
rainbow rabbit. They were best friends forever.
Summer Holiday Library
workshop stories
The Mouse's Food Swap
One normal day, a mouse
went to get his usual food which was apples but when he got there all the
apples had vanished. The mouse was very disappointed until he spotted three
trees full of berries. The mouse scurried up the trees as quick as he could.
And from that day onwards he always ate berries and as he ate the berries and
needed to climb in the trees to get them his tail grew longer and could wrap
itself round branches
(Sutton-in-Ashfield Library)
Rosetta the Cheetah Queen
Once upon a time, there
was lived a beautiful cheetah called Rosetta who was the Queen of the Rainbow World. One day, she went on an adventure so she packed her bag of delicious
rainbow trifle and rainbow fizz and then she set off. On her way, she saw a beautiful
rainbow but then she came across a cheetah witch who was very bad and tried to
kill her. But she didn’t. To be continued….
(Stapleford Library)
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| Rosetta (on the left) and a beaker of rainbow fizz, with straw |
*Visual Stories is a county (Nottinghamshire) wide project
inspired by the Summer Reading Challenge theme Animal Agents. Animal Agents is
running in all Inspire libraries from 15 July to 10 September. Find out
more
https://www.inspireculture.org.uk/reading-information/childrens-library/summer-reading-challenge/
Visual artists and story tellers have
worked with schools to create wonderful exhibitions for two of Inspires library
galleries this summer in West Bridgford and Retford.
